A Secret Power

I received quite enthusiastically the little bag. Angela told me about her project ekeko – In truth I don’t remember much what it was, but she mentioned something about using an amulet, which caught my attention immediately. I was in a somewhat turbulent controversial period—one of those periods when you question your ability to control certain aspects of your life and feel quite sorry for the failed attempts – despite every effort, to arrange, fix and avoid certain things that sometimes appear to be bound to happen. My specific situation was related to the academy. End of semester final exams, exams: danger (rather endangering) Talinka cannot threaten (not ego, not for self but for money). The stress added to the anguish of uncertainty sometimes makes you do things that otherwise would not do (like hang around the neck 100 g of copper and lead continuously for a month and rarely for more than three months). Thus, the little bag came to me as powerful and protective, materialized in a sort of spiritual and functional ornament, operating with a small and almost magical ritual mechanism: Light a candle housed inside and ask, pray, something ….

It was what I was needing, something responsible for what happens to me, something to which you can ask for the impossible, something that is above any design…

I used it all day, slept with it, only took it off for the shower (so it does not rust). When I was faced with a complex situation (in my case before any examination or test) a few minutes before I went somewhere more isolated (usually I went to the bathroom and locked in a cubicle, took the candle, lit up and the truth ….. I do not know what it was doing …. I sometimes thought, sometimes pleading, sometimes not even thinking (?) and I only light it to look at a little candle burning in my hands.

The ritual was fire, which alone has an ancestral ritualistic charge. Perhaps the fire was the connection (with what? I don’t know), the candle was the realization of that connection or communication and the purse itself was the container. I carried the container daily and constantly revealed its presence (for the swing and hit the walk, contact with skin, or by calling the attention of other people asking what it was …) while the purse was the receptacle of the candle, also looked after my desires, my requests, or anything that I thought while the candle was on. Kept, I kept to myself.

I started to miss me little by little my attitude (usually I do not tend to believe in superhuman forces that control human affairs), but this vulnerability that, initially, it made you accept the challenge to BELIEVE, it opens you to other channels , where other words, emotions and thoughts begin to displace fears and anxieties. It’s comforting. It is very comforting to let go control, to want to believe that you have no control, the relief of your weight of responsibility is addictive. It’s addictive to the degree that it responds, it solves what you cannot, you are absolved… (although it does not do it, the belief that it does has already dissolved your questions, and frees you from the burden of self-criticism, self-control ).

The truth is that I never stopped to continue with my duties and rationally knew that the challenges were mine and nothing but my effort could conquer them. Gradually I began to balance this ‘use’ of the amulet in situations where my spirit flagged… and if I have to attest its efficacy, yes, I confirm the effectiveness of the use of any object that serves as a bridge between you and your vulnerability…. I think it worked well … and I think it works well in general with the totems, amulets with images and personifications: materialization of what has no name (or many names).

In short, I got used to my little bag lots, I got used to the point where I felt that even combined with all the clothes it was wearing … I got used so much that I did not feel its presence, but I was bothered by it absence. …. I had to go with it … it chest was green with rust when used under clothing ….

I removed it. A couple of days I took it away. I’m still me, but I think the material loss (the object itself) is what I feel. The spiritual loss, it not lost. What is inside the little bag, wherever you are my little bag, always will be there … and here, with me